I’ve never been a good swimmer.
I mean, I can swim. But what I do in a pool feels more like a battle for survival than a workout — especially after the first few laps. My legs are too long, my stroke is uneven and I constantly struggle to get a decent breath.
It’s not fun, which is why I rarely swim for fitness. Plus, swimming culture is intimidating, with its caps and goggles and rules about lane splitting.
But it’s great winter exercise, if you have access to an indoor pool. So I recently set out to become a better swimmer, with the help of my first lessons since grade school.
It turns out that you can get a lot better with just few lessons. And once you do, you suddenly have another option for an aerobic workout that’s easy on the joints.
“That’s the benefit of swimming,” said Matthew Barbini, director of performance for USA Swimming, who came to the sport after an injury in his teens. “There’s really no impact. There’s no pavement involved. There’s really no equipment involved.”
Swimming lessons are remarkably useful.
Even though swimming is easy on the body, exercising underwater can still feel fundamentally unnatural. So it’s not surprising that you might need more instruction as an adult to do it well.
I hired Angie Peluse, a swimming coach in the Denver area who specializes in teaching adults, to evaluate my freestyle technique. She said about half her clients are like me — they know how to swim, but they need coaching.
So I thrashed about in a pool and she quickly assessed my stroke. Untrained swimmers like me can address a lot of their issues in four to six lessons, she said, with a couple of practice sessions in between. Ideally, they should be weekly, so expect to be at the pool a fair bit for a month or two.
If you don’t know how to swim at all, learning the basics can take longer, depending on your level of anxiety about water.
There’s no national governing body for swim instructors. To find a good one, Ms. Peluse recommended, start with recreation centers or local adult swimming groups. Then try nearby college swimming teams.
But if you want to nudge up your swimming game on your own, here are some of the most common mistakes people — including me — make in the pool.
Lesson No. 1: Body Position
My first lesson was in a 24-foot pool at Ms. Peluse’s office. She quickly spotted my first mistake — a very common one for people who have never been coached. I kept trying to look ahead, toward the far end of the pool, which forced my chest up and my feet down, causing me to sink in the water.
I’m already naturally less buoyant than most people. When I’m floating on my back, my legs immediately sink, no matter how hard I try. So this lesson was especially important for me.
How to improve
This one is easy: Look straight down and keep your eyes on the centerline at bottom of the lap lane. No matter what, don’t look up.
“The wall’s not going to move,” said Nadine Ford, a veteran swim coach and founder of Mahogany Mermaids in Charlotte, N.C. “Relax. Drop your head.”
Looking up is a surprisingly hard habit to kick, so plan on at least one practice pool session where you work just on keeping your head down.
Lesson No. 2: Kicking
It was also obvious that I was focusing too much on my arms and not enough on my legs.
“Your kick is the most propulsive part of the stroke,” said Mr. Barbini, who advises elite athletes across the country. “It doesn’t matter how strong you are in your upper body.”
Since I was essentially trying to pull myself through the water with my arms, my kicks were too wide and slow. Slower kicks mean less propulsion and, once again, a tendency to sink.
How to improve
Start by swimming a lap as you normally do. Then try one where you focus on fluttering your legs for faster kicks and see if you can feel a difference. Ms. Peluse said to imagine you are kicking off a pair of slippers — with straight legs and toes extended.
“You want it to be big enough that you’re being propulsive,” Mr. Barbini said, but “small enough that you’re not creating unnecessary drag.”
On each lap, Ms. Peluse had me push off the side of the pool, with my hands in front of me as if I were diving, and go as far as I could underwater while only kicking. I quickly felt how much my legs could do and pushed myself to kick faster and more tightly.
Next, swim a lap using a kickboard — and a pair of fins, if you have them. The kickboard will force you to kick faster to move forward, and the fins will add speed and keep your hips up. They’re also hard to use without proper form.
“Feel what resistance feels like,” Ms. Ford said. “Then we take them off, and I would try to get you to mimic that.”
Lesson No. 3: Arms
Ms. Peluse explained that I was spending way too much time with my arms below me underwater instead of ahead of me, which was tanking my stroke.
The best way to stay afloat is to keep both arms straight in front of your head, like a diver. The more time you spend with at least one arm like that, the better.
How to improve
There is a very simple way to learn this: the catch-up drill. Hold a kickboard in front of you while keeping both arms fully extended. Now start your arm stroke, but keep one hand on the board at all times, letting go with each when the next one grabs the board. It may feel wrong at first to have your arms out for so long, but stick with it.
Lesson No. 4: Breathing
“Even if you are the best swimmer in the world, breathing is always going to slow you down,” Mr. Barbini said.
Add to that, I never feel as if I’m getting enough air, especially after the first lap. I’m always twisting to get my head out of the water to breathe more. The problem, I learned, was less about how often I was breathing and more about my timing.
How to improve
Mastering breathing takes work, and many swimmers tinker with their technique for years. But the first step is simple: Breathe in above the water and breathe out underwater. Too many people breathe out while their head is out of the water, Ms. Peluse said. Practice breathing completely out — slowly and steadily — underwater rather than all at once just before your breath.
“It’s a slow trickle,” Ms. Ford said.
I’d like to say that I’m now as graceful as a dolphin in the water. I’m not, and I still struggle after the first few laps. But after four lessons, I can go to any pool in the country, get a solid workout and feel like I belong.
And, on a good day, I might even have a little fun doing it.
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